Mississippi's personhood amendment was counterproductive, imprudent, and ill-defined. Had it passed, it wouldn't have stopped a single abortion and would have merely given the Supreme Court another opportunity to re-affirm Roe v. Wade. Furthermore, Mississippi already has a "trigger law" on the books to ban 99 percent of abortions when Roe v. Wade is overturned. Whereas the "trigger law" makes exceptions for extreme and rare cases when the mother's life is threatened or in the case of rape, the personhood amendment didn't contain any explicit exceptions.

The state's sitting governor, pro-life Republican Haley Barbour, raised concerns about the measure last week. "Some very strongly pro-life people have raised questions about the ambiguity and about the actual consequences – whether there are unforeseen, unintended consequences. And I'll have to say that I have heard those concerns and they give me some pause," Barbour said. "Strategically, there’s some national organizations that think this may mess up trying to get more pro-life policies adopted nationally."